Roy Sanford, Staff Reporter
WESTERN BUREAU:
TWO DAYS after declaring that he was packing up and leaving for good, secretary/manager of the St. James Parish Council Christopher Powell was back on the job yesterday.
"I took a one-day departmental leave to seek advice concerning the incident and I am back today," Mr. Powell told The Gleaner during a short interview. "I am still thinking of leaving this job and this parish."
Mr. Powell and his family had a major scare shortly after 12:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning when unknown gunmen, travelling in a white Toyota Corolla, sprayed his Leaders Avenue home, in Montego Bay, with bullets.
Shortly after a meeting with his staff on Wednesday, Mr. Powell, who was not hurt in the incident, told members of the media that, "I am going on departmental leave for a few weeks and then vacation leave. I am not coming back to St. James."
Yesterday he said he still plans to leave the Parish Council, and was only awaiting a response from the Public Services Commission to his request.
The attack on Mr. Powell's home received widespread condemnation, with Minister of Local Government Portia Simpson Miller describing it as a 'sad day for Jamaica.'
Derrick Kellier, State Minister in the Ministry of National Security, described it as a 'terrorist act' and expressed concerns at what he described as 'crass intolerance' that he said has been creeping into the St. James Parish Council.
Mayor of Montego Bay Noel Donaldson also condemned the attack, but his People's National Party colleagues at the council have chided him for his slow response in the matter.
Helene Davis-Whye, general secretary of the Jamaica Association of Local Government Officers, also deemed it "a very dark day" in local government, noting that it was the first time that the life of a council administrator had been threatened by way of an armed attack.
